Page 57 of Chasing Blue
“Finn Jackson Cole, one more woman objectifying word from your mouth, and I’ll pump hand sanitiser into it,” my sister snaps at my son.
“What? I’m not objectifying her. I’m just saying she’s got great tits and arse. If she had a big mole on her face, I’d say the bird with the big mole,” Finn argues his case with a shrug. My sister looks at me.
“Don’t look at me, I’m with my kid on this one. He’s not wrong.”
Milly looks over her shoulder at Shannon, who shrugs. I narrow my eyes on him, waiting to hear what he has to say. “It’s the freckles for me,” he adds another shrug and a nod as he speaks.
“Good answer,” I tell him.
“Yeah, the freckles and the hair are cute too,” Finn adds.
“That’s enough from you now, boy,” I warn him, my eye now twitching.
“What she sees in your old man, I’ve no fucking clue,” Shannon states. “Can’t take a punch, can’t throw a punch . . .”
“Get fucked,” I tell my brother as the door opens and a nurse walks in, followed by a doctor.
* * *
I’m dischargedfrom the hospital without any fanfare, just a list of things to look out for in case I have any kind of delayed reaction to the blow to my head.
Being the patient, it’s only fair that I get to call shotgun for the drive home in Shannon’s beast of a truck, and I finally get to charge my phone.
It lights up with missed calls and message notifications the instant it comes to life.
I scroll through until I find what I’m looking for; two missed calls from Scarlett but no message. Scrolling back, I see my brother Nate and my dad have both called, and I have a missed call and a message from Eden:Babe, Finn told me you’re in the hospital. Please call and let me know you’re ok! X
Babe? What the fuck? We’re civil when we speak, but Babe?
“You tell your mum I was in the hospital?” I ask over my shoulder to my son.
“Yeah. It’s Saturday. She calls me every Saturday lately, and I was on my way to see you when she called, so I told her. Was I not supposed to?”
I shrug. “It’s cool, she just messaged me, that’s all.”
“Yeah, she sounded worried when I told her.”
I don’t look her way, but I can feel my sister rolling her eyes from where she sits next to Finn in the back. We both know the only person Eden worries about is Eden, that includes Finn. He has no idea all the reminder calls and messages I’ve made to her over the years, so she doesn’t forget to call on his birthday, before a big exam, or sporting event. And this calling every Saturday is a recent thing that only started in the past few months. There was a time she’d go weeks without reaching out, and I’ve had to message her with a prompt. Finn doesn’t know that, and he’ll never hear it from me. I lost my mum to cancer when I was fifteen, she was the absolute best, and I’ve never really gotten over it. I can’t begin to imagine how it’d feel to have a living, breathing mum who didn’t give enough of a shit to pick up the phone once in a while.
I’m as close to my son as any father can be, but it’s hard sometimes, walking that fine line between mate and parent. You want them to come to you with any problems, but at the same time, there has to be that element of fear instilled in them that there’ll be consequences if they misbehave.
I’ve had no one to be the good cop to my bad in raising him, but I’ve been lucky that my dad, brothers, and sister have all played a part, and I’m proud of both him and us on the way that’s gone. For the most part, Finn’s a good kid, and is now becoming a good man, and Eden has had very little to do with that.
* * *
Once I’m home,showered and settled, I call my dad and brother Nate, listen to them bust my chops about not being able to fight, and then have to reassure them both that I’m good and they don’t need to fly down from Palmers Bay where they both still live, and check on me.
I ignore Eden’s message because again, what the fuck?
And once Finn has gone out, and Milly is curled up at the other end of the couch with her headphones on watching something on Netflix, I call Scarlett.
“Hey,” she answers, her voice sounding raspy, instantly making my dick twitch. “You okay? You home or still at the hospital? What have they said?”
I smile as she fires off each question before I get a chance to get a word in.
“I’m good, Blue. Home and on the couch. What you up to, you sound tired?”
“Yeah, I slept in, showered, put clean PJs on and have been doing exactly what you’re doing and lying on the sofa ever since.”
